Cafe Editorial
by Teknogeddon
Summary: An Editor and his new student and writer go over the basics of writing and it's corrections.


Axel smirked, tracing his finger around the rim of his coke, green eyes fixated on table as if daydreaming. Resting his chin on his hand, elbow on the table, he glanced upwards to lock eyes with the furious blue in front of him. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?"

Roxas flushed in response, unsure what to do in the situation. He sat frozen, staring at the redhead like a mouse staring at a cat. Axel hummed in retort, taking a careful sip on his drink, drumming fingers on the table. "Now, let's take a look at your recent works." He spread out some documents in front of the two of them, namely four separate chapters. "I'm going to make this as painless as possible for you, just pay attention." He slid on a pair of black reading glasses and began working.

He plucked the first of the four, sliding the others to the side. Roxas stared as he flipped through the pages, licked his finger, and then paused on a particular page, coated in pink and yellow highlighter. "Let's start here, you enter the character and he sees a vampire, and yes, he reacts with the fear response of flight. Good."

Roxas swallowed and rubbed his hands together, licking his lips nervously.

"The problem with this segment is that in only... two to five paragraphs, and no time gap, your character has accepted the vampire and finds it harmless." Axel placed the paper back down. "If I looked at you and started saying shit like that, you'd run for the hills. You probably wouldn't come back. Fuck that."

"I would come back," Roxas replied, trembling slightly under the critique.

"Not in two paragraph's time. That could be less than five minutes unless you specify it's taking time." He didn't budge with the topic, remaining stoic and looking bored through the explanation. "I'm an editor, not the writer, but I'm telling you that this is way too fast for the average human to respond. It'd take at least a week for a human's conscience to cope with a trauma like this, so no. He wouldn't have came back so quickly."

Roxas looked up, "But it's where he lives, he'd have to come back."

Axel hummed, looking at the page, "So your character is a hermit and has no family or friends he can borrow the couch of? That's depressing, what a lame character."

"No!" the blonde argued, "No, he's quite normal."

"Then make him normal, no person would just automatically accept a vampire in their house. It doesn't happen, unless he's lived with one before. Now say the vampire locks all the doors, and your character couldn't escape... what then? Panic. Panic sets in, they'd hole up in a room and try and to escape the first chance they'd get or fight it out. The vampire would have to restrain them eventually," he continued. He crossed his arms in front of him, leaning on the table and enjoying his beverage. "Be believable, and it makes for a more interesting read."

Roxas swallowed, taking a cautious sip of his own drink. "Okay," he affirmed.

Axel flipped to another page, "why did you quote music here?"

"I thought it influenced the mood, and wanted to share it with the reader."

Axel shook his head. "You didn't, I've never heard of this song. I looked it up and it sucked. Ruined the section for me. Don't force your tastes on your reader. Just say type of music, it's far less annoying and the reader can play a song _they _ like. Not you."

Roxas nodded, wanting to disappear into his chair.

The read head sat that chapter aside, pulling another from a different work. "Do you know what lateral thinking is?" He frowned as the blonde shook his head. "Lateral thinking is finding another way to reach a conclusion or answer through creative means. Ever heard the shortest story ever written?"

Again, the blonde shook his head, Axel grabbed a pen and wrote a single sentence, sliding it over to the blonde on a napkin. 'For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.' Roxas frowned and stared at the sentence.

"So Roxas, what do you think of the shortest story?"

"It's depressing," Roxas said.

"Why?" Axel asked, firmly.

The blue eyes met green again and then danced away, "It died didn't it? Somehow the baby never got to wear them... it's sad."

"Not neccessarily," the elder drawled, looking out the window with a bored expression. "Does it say the baby died?"

"The shoes were never worn, so yeah... it does, doesn't it?"

Axel smirked, and shook his head. "Where does it say that the baby died, it only says they were never worn. What if the shoes were pink and the baby was a boy?"

"I hadn't thought of that..."

Axel flicked the pen toward Roxas's face, pointing at him. "That. That is lateral thinking. You assumed the baby was dead, but there is no evidence of that. I assume the baby is alive, because I want to. Because I thought about it. Now let me quote a section of your writing to you." Axel held up the manuscript and read aloud, "Cloud blushed and looked off to the side, because he was so nervous he could barely breathe. Leon smirked and traced his thumb over the blonde's bottom lip. Why are all your character's gay by the way... don't straight men exist?"

Roxas flustered with that question, settling on a frown. Axel waved it off. "Anyway," he continued, "You explain a little too much in your writing. Why did you include 'so nervous he could barely breathe...? It's unnecessary." Axel struck through the segment with a red pen, fluid in his motion. "Now it reads 'Cloud blushed and looked off to the side comma Leon smirked and traced his thumb over the blonde's bottom lip." Axel smirked at the blonde again, "Now... Why?"

"Excuse me?"

He tapped a few fingers on the sentence, "Explain to me why he blushed?"

"Because he was nervous, that's why I orginally said it."

Axel frowned, "I already knew he was nervous, _because _ he blushed, I'm asking why he was nervous."

It suddenly clicked, "Lateral thinking..." Roxas muttered. "It could be anything, meaning the reader can... choose an exact reason?"

"I read it as he has a lip fetish and he got turned on, but hey that's just me." Axel slouched back on the chair, hanging an arm over the back. "You catching my drift?"

Roxas nodded, understanding. "You're saying I need to let the reader have room to choose, okay. I got it."

He nodded back, smiling for the first time. "Later on in this story, you say the character notices he has three strands of hair in his eyes... is you character a neat freak of some kind?" He thumbed through the pages, finding the sentence, it was heavily circled in blue highlighter.

Roxas shook his head, "No, he's normal..."

"Did you count how many pieces of hair fell in my eyes when I came in today?"

"No."

"Then why did he?" Axel continued, looking at the segment of story in confusion.

Roxas froze, suddenly not having an answer. "Okay... I don't get it."

"Unless your character is some kind of OCD nut with a reason to suddenly notice why there's an EXACT number of hairs in his face. A 'few' or 'several' works just fine. I have 'some' hair in my face, so do you, but I'm not sitting here counting how many 'some' is."

The aspiring writer let out a low 'oh' sound, nodding. "Okay. Gotcha."

Axel pushed aside the chapter and went for number three. "I love the dialogue in this one, but I have no idea what's being said or where."

A waitress sauntered over the table, asking if the two boys needed anything? Axel asked for a refill, and a bagel, but Roxas brushed her off with a thanks and said he didn't need anything. She smiled and left them to their business, Axel repeated his previous statement.

"What do you mean you don't know where they are or who said it?"

"It's called bouncing dialogue, you just have the character's talking but there's no interaction between them. Has time stopped moving and they're just telepathically speaking to each other in a frozen state?" Axel drawled, looking a the half a page of unmarked dialogue.

Roxas slid the page out from his grasp, "No," He said looking it over, and then pointed to a segment of the paragraph prior. "It says right here it's Namine and Sora talking and they're in a lunchroom."

"Now try taking your dialogue out and telling me that again, reading only the dialogue."

Axel covered up the paragraph in question and watched the writer's brow furrow. "You have no idea who said what, or where they are do you?"

He took the page from the sullen blonde, and with a few flicks of the pen added in some statements. Roxas re-read, looking at the words 'he said, gesturing...' and 'She took the page from him' and then speech. He cocked his head to the side, amazed how such a small change affected it. "Most writers seem to stop here, but a really GOOD writer goes even further," he said as he took the page again, adding a few more small statements, rearranging the text slightly. "Now read it to me, all three versions."

Roxas cleared his throat, reading the before first.  
_"That's great"_  
_"really, I don't know."_  
_"It really is wonderful! You should show everyone!"_  
_"I don't really want to."_

He frowned, Axel was right. It made little sense. He moved on to the next section.

_"That's great!" Namine exclaimed._  
_"Really?, I don't know," Sora stared at the sheet of paper with an empty expression._  
_She snatched the paper away from him, "It really is wonderful! You should show everyone!"_  
_"I don't really want to," He flushed, looking away._

He smiled, it was much better already. Axel gestured for him to continue.

_"That's great!" Namine exclaimed, drawing attention from the entire lunchroom._  
_"Really?, I don't know," Sora stared at the sheet of paper with an empty expression. His drawing seemed to stare back at him, the innocent blue eyes bearing into his very soul._  
_She snatched the paper away from him, "It really is wonderful! You should show everyone!"_  
_"I don't really want to," He flushed, looking away, trying desperately to pull the drawing from her hands. He didn't want her to see it, that would be very hard to explain..._

The editor smiled at his new writer, "What do you think?"

"Amazing! It completely changed!"

He suppressed a laugh, it wasn't like it was magic. He thanked the waitress as she dropped off his refill and a bagel, handing her a couple of notes from his pocket. Roxas looked like the model of happiness, smiling at her this time.

He took a large bite of his bagel, humming in delight at the taste. "It's amazung how mush shmall statements can make," he said around the pastery. "Watch out for repeated terms as well, you use the term 'figure' three times in two paragraphs. It's harmless, but put some extra flavor into it... Okay... Onward."

Axel grabbed the next, and final section of writing. "This one you'll love. I already did some research for it."

Roxas, suddenly cheery and bright in comparison to the start of this session, waited anxiously for him to explain.

"You've got werewolves, but one problem... you call them Lycans."

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "How's that a problem"

Axel pulled out his phone and turned around a google search to him, "The term Lycan was made up. It's not a real term."

Roxas stared at the device, the words staring back him. "It's not?"

"It was a coined term, so why not make your own?"

The blue eyes looked over the information, "How?"

"Little bit of latin... Lycos is the latin word for Wolf, and where the term 'Lycan' came from. Now... using that same term lets combine it with Luna or someting... 'Lyunas' for example. "Lycume' Wolf Hume-an." Roxas absorbed this information like a sponge. "Make them wear necklaces of the order of the moon or something. Be original, get creative. What fun is there walking down the same road over and over? The same story can only be told so many ways before it dies."

Roxas nodded, making a note of this in his own phone.

"BUT..." he continued, being firm and cold about this. "DO NOT, make it weird. Everyone knows vampires don't sparkle, and werewolves are allergic to silver, so unless you've got some good reasoning behind you, don't get ridiculous. A moon order sounds fine, but would a feather boa? No. It's stupid. Don't be stupid."

Roxas nodded again, "I understand."

"Hell you don't even have to do much, make them people blessed by the moon due to dancing when she waxes around a fire that turns white or something, call em' MoonDancers. Take one idea, stick to it, don't stray off. Don't go crazy, don't throw too much into the mix UNLESS you're doing a series."

Roxas watched as Axel stacked up the four documents, and handed them to him. "Take these home and learn something from my notes in them."

The blonde nodded and took the manuscripts, putting them into the messenger bag beside him.

"You've got some real talent Roxas, don't let it go to waste," he said, removing his reading glasses and taking another bite of bagel before washing it down with some coffee.

"Thank you. You're a great teacher," The blonde smiled, bowing his head slightly to him. He received a hum, and a frantic hand wave in response, a finger tilting his chin back up.

"I'm am editor not a teacher, and for that you owe me another lunch."

Roxas drew back slightly, "Sorry... did you forget something?"

"Sure, let's go with that," Axel said, finishing off his bagel. "We can catch a movie afterwords."

The writer forgot how tall his editor was, watching in awe as he stood up and ruffled his hair in shock. He waved over his shoulder as he left, the waitress stepped up and delivered a bill. Roxas frowned and stared at it as if it had bitten him. "That bastard."

* * *

This was meant to be an educational short, to help writers on .  
I used my own short segments and examples, no references. The Shortest Story Ever Written is by Ernest Hemingway.

if needed, I will continue this, but it's really meant to be for a guide. There WAS a guide I posted, but it was taken down for mysterious reasons so I posted it as a story instead. HA! EAT SHIT

-Teknogeddon


End file.
